From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 7 13:09:49 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9834A16D696 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 12:11:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nick@nickwithers.com) Received: from mail.nickwithers.com (mail.manrags.com [203.219.206.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29B5543D45 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 12:11:41 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nick@nickwithers.com) Received: from localhost (shmick.shmon.net [10.0.0.252]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.nickwithers.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 543E83AA97 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 22:11:32 +1000 (EST) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 22:11:31 +1000 From: Nick Withers To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20060607221131.a001ae57.nick@nickwithers.com> Organization: nickwithers.com X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.5 (GTK+ 2.8.18; i386-portbld-freebsd6.1) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-nickwithers-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-nickwithers-MailScanner-From: nick@nickwithers.com Subject: FreeBSD Wireless Access Points with Atheros Cards X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:10:16 -0000 G'day all, I was recently asked to set up a wireless access point by a mate. Having read section 27.3.3.2 - "Building a FreeBSD Access Point" ("http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html") from the FreeBSD Handbook I duly advised my friend that they'd need to procure one of the Prism cards listed in the wi(4) man page, as, according to the Handbook, "In order to set up a wireless access point with FreeBSD, you need to have a compatible wireless card. Currently, only cards with the Prism chipset are supported". When he got back to me the next day and said he couldn't find one in any major store and that he'd been told they were no longer available first-hand (whether all this is true or not, I'm not entirely sure - but it's not really all that relevant for the purposes of this question) I was a little surprised. After much more stuffing about, the ath(4) man page caught my eye and I found the magic sentence: "Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, IBSS, and host-based access point operation modes". I've subsequently set the thing up and it's now chugging away merrily in hostap mode with hostapd helping out with 802.11i shennanigans. It appears to be fully operational. My question, then, is this: Is the access point I've set up not actually functioning as an access point in the strictest sense of the term? Is the Handbook in need of a little attention in this area? I'll happily create a patch for the doc and submit a PR to have it updated, but just wanted to check before doing so that I'm not just being an idiot (I'm particularly good at that!). Thanks all! -- Nick Withers email: nick@nickwithers.com Web: http://www.nickwithers.com Mobile: +61 414 397 446